Interview with Speedy Duncan

Speedy Duncan broke my heart in 1967 when he intercepted QB Len Dawson’s short pass just past the goal line and returned it 100 yards for a td. What should have been a 6 yard td pass became an AFL record interception return.

I’d bet money that the picture above that is included with this article is Speedy running that interception back for the touchdown; Duncan earlier in this game had also returned a Mike Garrett fumble 35 yards for a td. A KC td would’ve made it 17-14 Chargers; instead it became 24-7 and eventually 45-17 before 2 late Chief tds made it appear a closer game than it really was.

The 45-31 final led Chiefs Coach Hank Stram to say the Chargers were “fantastically fast” and “no one has ever beaten us that badly.” Lance Alworth & rookie Dick Post left Chiefs defenders grasping at air too, combining for 2 more long td scores. I hated Speedy Duncan so much that I wished he were a Chief 🙂

From AFL Champions to 3rd place the West Division, the Chiefs gave that 1967 season away – their own silly mistakes more so than opposition dominance more often than not. ’67 still bugs me… it probably bugs the Chargers too: undefeated 5-0-1 aft 6 games, they went 3-5 rest of the way. 1966, almost the samee story: a 4-0 start, then ended 3-6-1. Their first loss in 1967 came to the Raiders who lost 1 game that regular season, winning 11 straight including the AFL Championship before venerable Green Bay prevailed in Superbowl II.

1967 was also interesting in the NFL: both the Rams and Colts lost only 1 game each that season, BALT not losing until the final week when the Rams beat them, and in the process eliminated BALT from post season. Imagine a team losing only one game in today’s NFL and not making post season. Course, the Packers then beat the 1 loss Rams in post season and went on to take a second consecutive Superbowl.

OAK 13-1-0, LA 11-1-2, BALT 11-1-2, GB 9-4-1, SD 8-5-1, KC 9-5-0…what a strange season it was, 1967. Back to where we began, what a sensational player Speedy Duncan was. Along with the Chiefs Noland ‘Supergnat’ Smith that year, the most exciting ‘little men’ in the AFL, my opine (with apologies Dick Post, Mike Garrett and other football lilliputians.)